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Topic: Hopkins Method of Queen Rearing (Read 4910 times)

I will ask this of Michael Bush, but anyone else with experience with the Hopkins Method of raising Queens jump in. I have never raised queens,but I recently aquired a feral hive that is the gentelest I have ever seen,and would like to try some queens from it any comments or warnings about the method.

I recently aquired a feral hive that is the gentelest I have ever seen

First of all, you have only seen a few traits for a very short period of time, I would hesitate to jump to conclusions by such a short observance.

The only negative factor I see is your geographic location. Unfortunately you can not control the queen possibly mating with AHB drones in your area. You can only control half the equation, and even that half has not yet proven all it's good qualities.

Ok, so you have seen the gentleness expressed by this colony, but have you seen it's ability to produce an abundance of honey? What about it's propolis production, swarming tendancies, wintering capabilities, spring build up, temperment during a dearth? Just a few things to consider.

There are many variations on the basic concept of fooling the bees into raising queen cells from larvae in standard comb. You can tear down the bottom wall on the ones you want to turn into queen cells. You can do the hopkins method of wiping out every other row and every other cell of the other rows so there is space to cut the cells out. The main thing is to have a good density of bees and plenty of pollen and nectar available for them to feed the queen cells. Also you'll need wax foundation and no wires (or cut around the wires) so you can cut the cells free. Wait until 14 days from when the eggs were laid to transfer to the mating nucs or the hives you want to requeen. Before that they are too fragile. After that is too big of a risk of one emerging and killing the others.

Thanks Phoneix and Michal I know how long they had been in the wall6 weeks, I removed the equilivent of 2 deeps full of capped honey andbrood. the only flight path from the entrance was across the front doorof the home and no one was ever stung, the inside cracks had only what I would call normal propolis we are in a near draught and no honey flowto speak of now for several days. there have been no AHB within 60 miles of my area ever confirmed. If I do this I will set up a mateingarea with another drone plentiful hive I have in the middle of a 30 section ranch, which we have never seen bees, but I know they may be there,but spraying a couple of years ago wiped out ever thing but the rattlesnakes and skunks. The feedyards have imported wasp they killed all of them with the spraying they use them for fly controll.Thanks for the info and like I say I am just thinking.

this summer is the first time that I have had any sucess raising my own replacement queens.I followed the Hopkins method and not only do I have enough queens for myself,but have given some to friends too. I cut the individual cells out on day 13(day fourteen I would have been at work for 16 hrs.) and kept them in cages pressed on the combs in a queenless nuc. Kept three and gave two away. I know its only five queens,but i'm thrilled that it worked! :D Thanks to everyone for the direction and encouragement to try this. Transfered 12 cells and five hatched,probably not a good percentage-but GREAT for me. Just had to tell you all about it because I wasn't sure that I could make it work. Yippeee!!!!!!!!!! By the way, you won't see me post all my failures-too many to list. :lol: